Before proceeding to give a slight description of a most interesting visit which I paid last September to the Asylum for the Insane, on the Isola di S. Servolo, Venice, conducted by the Padri Ospitalieri di san Giovanni di Dio, I am tempted to extract, from Dickens' Pictures from Italy, an account of his arrival by night at Venice, as it so prettily tells the story of my first impressions there, as leaving the railway station I embarked on board one of the black gondolas,* just as the bright harvest moon rose in all its glory on the broad waters of the Grand Canal.